Simply stated, federalism is good news because we get innovation, diversity, and experimentation. States that make wise choices will be role models for their peers. And it’s also worth noting that states that screw up will provide valuable…

Well color me shocked. Who would’ve guessed that a badly-crafted 2,000-page bill that no one read and was rushed through the night and is just chock-full of new regulations, bureaucracies, and mandates would actually bend the cost-curve up?

Anyone with a lick of sense, I guess, which lets out the Democratic Party, their Leftist supporters, and the fawning media. (But I repeat myself.)

Despite President Obama’s promises to rein in health care costs as part of his reform bill, health spending nationwide is expected to rise more than if the sweeping legislation had never become law.

Total spending is projected to grow annually by 5.8 percent under Mr. Obama’s Affordable Care Act, according to a 10-year forecast by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released Thursday. Without the ACA, spending would grow at a slightly slower rate of 5.7 percent annually.

CMS officials attributed the growth to an expansion of the insured population. Under the plan, an estimated 23 million Americans are expected to obtain insurance in 2014, largely through state-based exchanges and expanded Medicaid eligibility.

The federal government is projected to spend 20 percent more on Medicaid, while spending on private health insurance is expected to rise by 9.4 percent.

A tenth of a percent is not small change, when we’re talking about the scale of healthcare spending in the US. Moreover, we were told that implementing ObamaCare was essential to bending the cost-curve down. Not even, not up.

So, then, what was the point? The only thing accomplished is greater government control over and regulation of a crucial sector of our economy, which will only lead to a nationalized, Socialized single-payer system.

It’s a busy day today, so posting will likely be light. In the meantime, from Reason.TV, here’s an interview with author Sally Pipes about the problems with single-payer health care systems, which she covers in her new book, The Truth about ObamaCare:

A CANCER patient has been denied NHS funding for a new cancer drug which could add years to his life.

It means that health specialists will be unable to prescribe Everolimus, which costs about £40,000 a year and can extend lives by up to two years.

Doctors treating Graeme Johnstone, 54, from Middleton St George, near Darlington applied to the local primary care trust for funding for the drug. But NHS County Durham and Darlington rejected the request.

Fully licensed, and widely available in France and Canada, Everolimus, also known as Affinitor, has a proven track record. But so far it is not being made available through the NHS after the body which vets new drugs – the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) – decided not to recommend it.

And just what were they valuing against the cost of the drug Mr. Johnstone wants? Could it be the gentleman’s very life?

Makes you want to run out and apply for British citizenship, doesn’t it?

It’s as sure a thing as the sun rising in the East in the morning: a nationalized health system in which the government determines the price paid for everything inevitably becomes a system in which care is rationed and denied to save money.

Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio admits on Rachel Maddow’s show what only a fool cannot see: that passage of ObamaCare is only the first step toward single-payer, nationalized health care, in which we will all be wards of the State:

MADDOW: Should we not expect the public option anytime soon?

BROWN: No. Just—Rachel, you know history. I‘ve seen your show enough to know that you understand sort of how progressive—the progressive movements worked. When we passed, what, Social Security was passed in the ‘30s. It wasn‘t all that great at the time. When Medicare was passed, it was good, but not great.

… That‘s what happens here. This—you can bet that a lot of us are going to introduce a public option bill.

As soon the president signs this, we‘ll start working towards it. It may take a year. It may take five years. There are a lot of things we‘re going to do to continue to improve this system.

We obviously don‘t give up on it. We don‘t get everything we want. But we work—we look how this bill works, we look how this new law works, and we continue to try to improve it.

This bill is the wedge to open the door to European-style socialization and the transformation of Americans from free citizens to infantilized dependents. It is a Trojan Horse, and we must not let it through the gates.

So, they’re going to forcibly guarantee insurance to more people while driving doctors out of the profession, thus increasing the workload for those who remain… And we’re supposed to believe this will result in a better medical system??

Life (and death) under socialized medicine: a patient at a London hospital was so badly neglected by nurses that his death was referred to the police for criminal investigation:

A man of 22 died in agony of dehydration after three days in a leading teaching hospital.

Kane Gorny was so desperate for a drink that he rang police to beg for their help.

They arrived on the ward only to be told by doctors that everything was under control.

The next day his mother Rita Cronin found him delirious and he died within hours.

She said nurses had failed to give him vital drugs which controlled fluid levels in his body. ‘He was totally dependent on the nurses to help him and they totally betrayed him.’

A coroner has such grave concerns about the case that it has been referred to police.

This is just one of many scandals at National Health Service hospitals that are being reported almost, it seems, daily in the British press. The situation is so appalling, the Mail Online reports, that a government commission has called on nurses to sign a public pledge that they will give everyone decent care.

Take a good look at Britain’s NHS; that’s our likely future under ObamaCare.

About a month ago, we reported on Danny Williams, the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada who suddenly fled the Canadian single-payer health-care system to seek treatment for a heart ailment in the United States. We wondered at the time was his reason was.

An unapologetic Danny Williams says he was aware his trip to the United States for heart surgery earlier this month would spark outcry, but he concluded his personal health trumped any public fallout over the controversial decision.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Williams said he went to Miami to have a “minimally invasive” surgery for an ailment first detected nearly a year ago, based on the advice of his doctors.

“This was my heart, my choice and my health,” Williams said late Monday from his condominium in Sarasota, Fla.

“I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics.”

Good for you, Danny. I’m sure your constituents will understand while they have to languish on a wait-list for needed treatment or even participate in a lottery to get an appointment with a doctor, because the Canadian system you vehemently defend rations care for those who can’t jet off to Miami.

But don’t think it’s a reflection on Canadian health care:

Williams said his decision to go to the U.S. did not reflect any lack of faith in his own province’s health care system.

“I have the utmost confidence in our own health care system in Newfoundland and Labrador, but we are just over half a million people,” he said.

“We do whatever we can to provide the best possible health care that we can in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Canadian health care system has a great reputation, but this is a very specialized piece of surgery that had to be done and I went to somebody who’s doing this three or four times a day, five, six days a week.”

Danny, buddy. Do you notice something off here? If your system didn’t ration care, you wouldn’t have had to flee across the border! Don’t you think it somewhat telling that the free-market system to the south had just the guy you needed available right away?

Wouldn’t it be nice if all Canadians could enjoy that level of service?

I guess Newfie pols are more important than Average Joe Canuck.

Oh, folks, lest I forget: Danny plans to get the Canadian health service to pay for his medical vacation in Miami:

Williams also said he paid for the treatment, but added he would seek any refunds he would be eligible for in Canada.

“If I’m entitled to any reimbursement from any Canadian health care system or any provincial health care system, then obviously I will apply for that as anybody else would,” he said.